One of the challenges of defending against ballistic missiles is that some ballistic missiles may deploy a plurality of decoys during the reentry phase of the ballistic flight. Although the decoys are detectible by radar they are not distinguishable from the warhead based on the radar track data alone. One method of defending against such a ballistic missile involves launching multiple kinetic kill vehicles to intercept many of the incoming ballistic objects, so that at least one of which will be a warhead and others being decoys. However, because a large number of decoys are deployed by a ballistic missile, it is not practical to intercept every incoming object and only some are intercepted. Thus, when kinetic kill vehicles intercept one or more incoming ballistic objects deployed by a ballistic missile, it would be beneficial to automatically determine if the intercepted ballistic object is not the warhead. That would allow appropriate follow-on actions to be taken.